Battle of Derapet footage

As the Australian and Afghan soldiers crept into the Oruzgan village of Derapet in the dawn half-light and saw locals quietly slipping away, they knew a fight was coming.

It was no surprise. Another patrol had been fired upon several days previously, and the men had gone there expecting to counter resistance. Intelligence, however, suggested they would meet a force of only 15 to 25.

After that it was personal. The grunts were in a compromising position and we knew we could change the outcome

Instead, 20 Australian soldiers and a similar number of Afghan counterparts found themselves in the longest, and largest, engagement involving Australian regular forces – as opposed to Commandos or the Special Air Service Regiment – since the Vietnam War, against a force of up to 100 Taliban fighters.

Under fire ... a video grab of footage taken during the Battle of Derapet.

A leaked soldier's email also ensured it was controversial.

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On Thursday, Corporal Daniel Keighran was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the action which claimed the life of Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney. He joined four other Diggers who have already been honoured with two Medals for Gallantry, a Distinguished Service Medal and a Commendation for Gallantry.

While a total of 17 gallantry awards were belatedly awarded after the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam, more than five times as many Australians took part in that fight.

Returning fire ... footage taken during the engagement.

One in four of the Australians involved in the foot patrol at Derapet have now received major honours.

The soldiers, from 6 RAR's Delta Company, were part of a 35-strong Australian force mentoring about 20 Afghan National Army troops on a “planned fighting patrol” on August 24, 2010.

The patrol, from forward base Anar Joy, was tasked with flushing out and engaging insurgents near the tiny mud-walled village 20 kilometres west of Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province. While some purists have questioned the use of “battle” to describe the action, which claimed the life of Lance Corporal Jared “Crash” MacKinney, the men who were there aren't fussed about definitions.

“We were in the shit,” platoon commander James Fanning, now a captain, says. “We knew we had to pull together to get out of it; if we had been any closer [to the enemy] it would have been a knife fight.”

Captain Fanning, then a 24-year-old lieutenant, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership in the Australia Day awards this year. He told Fairfax Media earlier this year the story of a dramatic engagement that encompassed triumph and tragedy.

The men who fought, and others in the ADF, believe the achievements on the battlefield were overshadowed by a very public debate about tactics, logistics and fire support after a private email written by a soldier “venting” over the death of a close mate was leaked to the media.

"We were in the shit" ... Lieutenant James Fanning in Afghanistan. Photo: Supplied

Captain Fanning – the patrol commander – was happy to lay any concerns about intelligence, mission planning and fire support to rest. He said his men were well-equipped and, having been in Uruzgan since February 2010, had experienced combat and been under fire numerous times. They were using American Eagle body armour and were armed with Steyr rifles, some fitted with under-barrel grenade launchers firing high-explosive rounds. The grenades have a range of about 350 metres and were used with devastating effect. The platoon included snipers, armed with scoped and bipod-mounted rifles with a killing range of 800 to 1000 metres, and a MAG-58 machine gun.

Also playing a vital role were the Royal Australian Engineers, or “Sappers”, who provided force protection through IED [improvised explosive devices] and Taliban weapons cache finding. The force was completed by bomb dog Harry and his handler, Corporal Josh Colbourne. Harry, who had been checking for IEDs right up until the bullets started flying, impressed everybody with his composure under pressure. Described by one Digger as “the best soldier on the day”, he was trotting along as if out for a walk in the park.

The fighting was full on from the moment the shooting began. “We were in the aqueduct and taking fire from just ahead of us,” Captain Fanning said. “The insurgents had initially been in the same aqueduct. Sergeant Sean Lanigan and Private Paul Langer were both awarded medals for gallantry for their work in clearing them out. Paul was our point man. I'm sure Paul was the first to see them [the insurgents].”

Corporal Daniel Keighran's hand is held by his wife Kathryn after he was awarded the Victoria Cross by Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Government House today. Photo: Andrew Meares

A Defence spokesman said there was a clear expectation from available intelligence the patrol would make contact with the enemy. This was reflected in the well-developed mission plan and the allocation of significant fire-support and other resources, including a medivac Black Hawk on standby at Tarin Kowt. The medivac helicopters are unarmed and marked with the Red Cross but this did not stop the Black Hawk, courageously crewed by American personnel, from being fired on repeatedly when it came in to evacuate Corporal MacKinney.

“The enemy force [believed to be about 100] was larger than we had considered most likely [about 30] but it was not larger than what we had planned for as a worst-case scenario,” the spokesman said.

A 155mm howitzer based at Patrol Base Hadrian 15 kilometres to the west was laid onto the battlefield; a fixed-wing, ground-attack aircraft [an ISAF Mirage] was allocated to the operation after “troops in contact” had been declared and three Australian Light Armoured Vehicles [ASLAVs] and a Bushmaster fire-control car from Hadrian under the command of then Lieutenant Tim Hurley were stationed on an overwatch or fire-support position codenamed Juliet about 1.5 kilometres to the north-west of the combat zone. The job of the ASLAVs was to lay down covering fire for the forward deployed troops – and their presence made all the difference. “If it hadn't been for the ASLAVs we would have had a bad day. We would have been beaten – and taken more casualties,” Captain Fanning said. “They [the force at overwatch position Juliet] not only laid down suppressing fire; they were also giving us real-time information on where the insurgents were. Their elevated position gave them line-of-sight into areas we couldn't see.”

He said the resources that could be brought to bear were limited by the mountainous terrain. “It was not a large battlefield. We were in a narrow valley with only limited space. There is only so much you can deploy.”

When the fighting began the ASLAV force was ready to engage the enemy. They had been in position since just after dawn, concealed behind the summit of their hill waiting for the Taliban to commit.

“We rolled out of Anar Joy at first light, about 5.10am,” now Captain Hurley said. “We travelled with the engineers who later accompanied the patrol – including Harry and his handler. They cleared our overwatch position which was on a hill about 25 to 30 metres above the battle space. Dutch and French troops had been killed on that hill by IEDs not long before and we were being quite cautious.

“We could see right down the valley. It was at this time we spotted flocks of 50 to 60 women and children, about 100 in all, leaving Derapet in an easterly direction towards TK. At the same time, fighting-age males, many of them on motorcycles, were moving in from the east and taking up positions in the quala complexes [mudwalled compounds that combine barns and living quarters] to the east and north of our position. At that point we were pretty certain something would be going down that day.

“Once the engineers had searched the block we rolled back off the summit into dead ground. The idea was that when Lieutenant Fanning and his soldiers moved into contact we would move back up into our prepared position.

“Once the shooting started [in the valley] we waited about two minutes to allow the insurgents to be decisively committed. Our force identified their position and we started sweeping the northern end of the aqueduct with chain gun fire.”

The intervention came at an opportune time. While the soldiers were in the aqueduct they were taking fire from insurgents concealed in cornfields to their left and insurgents in the quala complexes on the high ground to their right. The insurgents were highly mobile, advancing to engage the joint force.

They were armed with AK-47 rifles. There are tens of thousands of these rugged and effective automatic weapons in Afghanistan thanks to the Russian invasion in the 1980s. They also had machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, widely used by the Taliban as light artillery and believed to be the heaviest firepower the insurgents could have deployed on the day.

The shooting of Corporal MacKinney only 33 minutes into the firefight changed what had, until then, been a routine – if intense – contact into a black day for MTF 1. He had originally been in Captain Fanning's platoon but was promoted to Lance Corporal and 2IC of another section a few weeks earlier.

“The loss of Jared was devastating to everyone. He was a popular part of Delta Company and one of the best soldiers you could ever have,” Captain Fanning said. “He was being heroic when he was killed – doing everything you could ask for. He was leading his men [a battlefield reserve made up of an eight-man section supplemented by seven other troops] up a hill.”

Captain Fanning had called for the reserve unit to move forward with its Mag-58 machine gun to take up a position on high ground overlooking the combat zone at 9.36am – 23 minutes after the initial contact.

He and his men were pinned down under heavy fire in an aqueduct about 200 metres to the north-east.

Corporal MacKinney's section moved forward on the run. He had taken the MAG-58 to give the operator a break and get it forward as fast as possible. When he was hit by enemy fire, one of the Australian snipers gave his own weapon to another Digger and started working on his wounded mate. Other members of the section kept the MAG-58 moving forward.

Providing emergency medical treatment for Corporal MacKinney and organising his aerial evacuation then became the priority. The engineers identified a landing site about 200 metres to the south-west of where he had been shot. It was in range of the insurgents and had to be cleared of IEDs and other possible threats before the helicopter could land.

“The Black Hawk came in under fire and had some difficulty setting down,” Captain Fanning said. “I have nothing but praise for the support we get from the Americans [in this regard]. The crews are very brave and [on this occasion] could easily have been shot down.”

Back at overwatch position Juliet, the ASLAV crews weren't resting on their laurels. The news Corporal MacKinney had been hit took the contact to another level. The Australians were now determined to deny the insurgents even the hint of a victory.

“Crash had worked with some of my guys while they were in Iraq together; he took the time to come and see us and we all liked him a lot,” Captain Hurley said. “After that it was personal. The grunts were in a compromising position and we knew we could change the outcome.”

Captain Hurley said, given the duration and the intensity of the firefight, it was remarkable more coalition casualties didn't occur. “Our people were pretty exposed; particularly those up on the hill where Crash had been heading and the snipers were.” Private Shaun Parker, the fourth Australian to be honoured for Derapet, earned his Commendation for Gallantry on that hill.

Yesterday, a further tale of bravery emerged, of how Corporal Keighran braved sustained enemy fire and dashed to an exposed ridgeline.

''With little regard for his own safety, Corporal Daniel Keighran deliberately and repeatedly drew intense enemy fire away from other members of his patrol,'' the Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, said during Thursday's presentation of his VC. ''Despite the enemy bullets biting into the dirt at his feet, he returned fire, providing critical information about the insurgents' positions.''

Governor-General Quentin Bryce pinned the gunmetal medal to Corporal Keighran's chest at Government House in front of the Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, the Chief Justice of the High Court and the chiefs of the defence services.

Confessing that her heart was skipping a beat, Ms Bryce declared that ''while we have no place in speaking for you, we can try to explain what we see in you''.

''Perhaps things you can't see, or haven't allowed yourself to see,'' she said. ''We see a man of profound physical and moral strength. A man selfless in the face of threat. Courageous in the face of terror. Generous in the face of suffering. And humble in the face of an honour bestowed.

''You would say you're no different from your mates, it's what you're trained for, what you're there for. It wasn't meant to happen, it just happened, and you did what you had to do. And there were other heroes that day.

''That's all true, except that what you did that day was different and acknowledging it here, now, does not diminish the efforts and sacrifices of those who fought beside you.''

Corporal Keighran has apparently never been the sort of man to embellish. Or to talk much at all.

Indeed, he revealed he had never told the whole story of that day to his wife, Kathryn, until a couple of weeks ago when he received a letter from the Chief of Army telling him that the Queen wished him to receive the Victoria Cross of Australia - an award that takes precedence over all other of the nation's orders, decorations and medals.

''I'm private in that regard, what we did over there,'' he said. He didn't want to talk about it any more - there was plenty of information out now, he insisted.